Join me tomorrow (Thursday) at noon PDT / 1900 UTC for the Planetary Society's weekly hangout! No guest this week; instead, I'll talk about some of the things I enjoyed at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. I hope you will all ask lots of questions about the news I've been reporting this week. Feel free to get the ball rolling by asking questions below!

You should see the video embedded below. If you don't see the player or if the player doesn't work, refresh your browser. It will start at noon PT.

NASA / JPL / MSSS / "Airbag"

Curiosity's APXS pressed against John Klein, sol 168

On sol 168 (January 25, 2013), Curiosity was beginning the lengthy process of analyzing and then sampling John Klein. Here, the APXS (Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer) is pressed against the rock.

Are there any connections with the early Climates of Earth and Mars and the model for the orbital shuffling of Jupiter and Saturn?

Emily Lakdawalla: 03/28/2013 10:44 CDT

I think that for the most part the terrestrial planets were sheltered from the orbital shuffling -- with the exception of the battering they received during the late heavy bombardment. But this period of wetness in Mars' history is pretty close to or just after the LHB, which is interesting. A lot of people have looked at whether Mars' transient wetness could've resulted from the occasional large impact and I think that the consensus is that impact-generated transient atmospheres don't last enough to make water last long enough for them to have produced the water features we see on Mars.

stone: 03/30/2013 05:49 CDT

The need for european instruments to fill the satelites and landers will not go away and I see the 2020 rover as another big place where my institute (Max Planck for Solar System Research) will contribute with instruments. I like the idea that others (US) pay the missions and I can do the science. A former coworker of mine is contributing to the seismometer on Insight and the guy who is doing our FPGA built part of the DAWN cameras. China, Japan and Russia are by far less eager to put forein iunstruments on their misssions. ESA has a different approach: ESA pays only for the mission and the national space agencies like CNES or DLR have to give the money for the instruments. This helps alot.